JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Review

The most valuable feature that I've found is that once it's configured, it's easy to use and maintain from a user standpoint.

Valuable Features:

The most valuable feature that I've found is that once it's configured, it's easy to use and maintain from a user standpoint. It's not something you have to keep re-configuring or programming because it breaks often. It's all-around, from implementation and maintenance points-of-view, a nice solution. Historically, JD Edwards is very good at absorbing those types of features into its new product releases.

Improvements to My Organization:

From an organizational perspective, it obvious that the ease-of-use and ease-of-maintenance aspects of JD Edwards provides us with greater efficiency and, ultimately, cost savings. This is huge for us.

Room for Improvement:

My concern is that it's not keeping pace with what's happening in the real world. Technology's moving on so quickly that the software is struggling to keep up. The company's not really investing enough in the product for additional innovations. For example, it needs to be updated as it looks the same as it did 10 years ago. The UI needs an update and now people are going to buy third-party products more because those are better than JD Edwards at doing specific tasks. Another example of this is that you need to have a third-party tool for reporting and you have to integrate it.

Use of Solution:

We implemented it in 1999.

Deployment Issues:

The deployment was fairly issues-free. The important part was getting it configured correctly and suitable for our needs.

Stability Issues:

There are some issues with stability. It's actually hard to get JD Edwards to fix anything anymore. You get the functions as designed a lot of the times, and the user groups struggle to try and get stuff fixed.

Scalability Issues:

It's scalable. You can start with a very small company, add bits to it, and it grows naturally with what your requirements are. Disks are cheap and you can use the same JD Edwards software as you get more complicated. The software gets more complicated with your requirements. It tries to answer everybody's needs as much as it can. You can sit on almost any platform, add more disc, add more users, and the product works very well whether you've got 10, 100, or 1000. Obviously, there's a cost associated with that, but straight out of the box, it's a very scalable tool.

Initial Setup:

It's relatively straightforward to configure. We only wanted core financials at the time. We've grown since then, and as we've acquired more companies. As our business has grown, we have added a lot more to the solution and a lot more complexity. And we've been able to do that quite efficiently over the years, and that's one of the good things about JD Edwards. You don't have to keep revisiting the box and the instruction manual, because you can just add stuff as you go.

Other Advice:

It's a good attempt at answering everybody's needs. You can never be perfect on every piece of application. JD Edwards, for the last 30 years, has tried its best to be as much of an answer to everything you require, and they've done a very good job of it.

Any leg work you can do at the beginning to prepare your organization, your executives, and the information that you need to get out of a software company would benefit you greatly. All of that work pays dividends in the long run. You don't get surprises, you don't get led down the garden path by somebody who thinks they know better.

Talk to people. Talk to as many people as you can. Come to user groups. Be a prospective customer. It's all about that preparation work. Even if you have to recruit somebody into your business that's done it before, it's all about finding that information to begin with.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.